Categories
Planes Restoration

Calling from the graveyard…

Stanley No.9 Cabinet Maker Plane – Hot Dog
…yes, a Stanley No.9 Cabinet Makers plane, sans ‘hot dog’ handle for now. I’ve not yet had the chance to empty all these more boxes to confirm it’s gone awol for sure. The pics I have so far don’t fill me with promise, but I’ve worked miracles on planes not far off this condition. If it’s rusted through on the bottom though, I’ll be gutted.

Update: Bad News. Halfway through cleaning the plane up, I noticed the back corner was coming loose as there seemed to be a fracture. Sure enough, the rear corner of the plane came away. No idea what I should do with this now. I think it would be possible to weld/braze, but beyond my skills. If anyone out there wants to make an offer on a fixer-upper, let me know, otherwise it might go on eBay.

Stanley No9 Cabinet Maker Plane_2
Stanley No9 Cabinet Maker Plane_3

PS, check out Colin Sullivan’s post about making his own.

Categories
London Restoration

Bear with me…

Apologies for the lack of woodworking posts, all my spare time has been eaten up recently, running back and forth to a small house renovation. The whole house has been re-plastered, lots of electrical work and some re-plumbing. I’ve been steadily getting the house back to a decent state, with the last month being dedicated to decoration. The house has a period cast-iron fireplace, with working flue now and I plan to spend a good while making some good built-ins for storage.
When I set out on this project in September, I planned ‘a little painting and maybe a new kitchen’. Only now am I getting round to gutting the kitchen and working out underfloor heating in there, as well as a million other small details that need to be attended to. I fitted the new (old) door last week, which lets lot of light into the hallway, a big improvement on it’s predecessor.
Well, it always takes longer than you think it will and I guess I’ve saved a lot of money by doing most of this myself and I’m also blessed with a few local trades who always turn up when they say they will. I’ll get there eventually.

Categories
Hand Tools Practical techniques Restoration

Glazing a Victorian door

I’m still crazy busy on a house renovation, but one of the projects I’m shuttling back and forth on is sorting out a new front door. The property is a mid-terrace Victorian two-bed, built in 1880. I found a decent door in a reclamation yard locally, for a very reasonable £80.
The current hallway in the house suffers a little from being too dark, primarily because the existing front door has only one tiny fanlight with glass panels.
This new four-panel door will be converted so that the top two panels will hold glass (and a lot more light) into the hall.
I will be fitting frosted safety glass for security reasons and for privacy, and will post more detail about mouldings and fitting as I get round to it.

Interior and exterior Victorian doors can generally be swapped, with the general construction being the same the only difference being exterior doors are usually a little thicker. This Victorian door has a substantial weight to it and is around 42mm thick, so should make a good exterior door for a house I’m renovating. Here, I’m going to remove the wooden upper panels and replace with glazed panels.
You can price the mouldings away if you tap a blunt chisel under them and gently lever them out. Trick is to start from the centre of the mouldings and work into the corners. The centre of the mouldings will be more flexible and it will be easier to loosen the nails.
You can then use these holes to start a jigsaw in, so just cut out the panels, leaving an inch or so around the edges.
Once you’ve cleared the existing mouldings, drill some big holes into the corners of the panels.
Once you have removed the majority of the panel, you can cut into the corners and ease the remaining bits of panel out of its rebate. They should come out easily, as they are just rebated in loose, to allow for movement.
Getting there. One panel cut out, one to go.
Here I’m prising one of the more reluctant strips out.
All cleared out now and you can see the rebate all around.
This rebate will no longer be needed, as glass will be dropped in and with a rebate it would slip around, so the next step will be to fill the rebates with wooden strips and plane flush. More pics soon.
Categories
Oliver Restoration

Oliver 217-D rebuild

Oliver 217-D Bandsaw
A decent bandsaw is always a nice addition to the workshop. I found this excellent rebuild review on the Kellogg Furniture website. The Oliver 217-D was built in 1942 in Grand Rapids, Michigan and commissioned by Douglas Aircraft Corporation in Santa Monica, California. Clark clearly found and dealt with lots of problems throughout, but ended up with a fine machine. Look at those proportions! What a stunning design.

Categories
Compass planes History Moulding planes Practical techniques Restoration

Circular restoration work on Høvelbenk blog

Hovelbank_1
The wonderful Høvelbenk blog is rapidly becoming a favourite of mine. Having recently found a Stanley No.20 circular plane, I’m keen to see a few in action and learn a bit more about what it can do. The latest post on Høvelbenk seems to be concerned with the restoration of a curved moulded arch over a historic door. The blog is Swedish, and I dearly wish I could read it in English, but the pictures are, as ever, nicely shot and edited. One very interesting shot shows planes which the writers seem to make (!), as part of the project. Wonderful stuff. I really hope this post makes it into their English category.